Natural Resources: Forests, Oceans, and Fisheries

Approaches to natural resources vary according to whether they are renewable or non-renewable, finite or infinite, global or local, and private, public, or common pool goods. Developing policy on natural resources pits economic considerations against environmental considerations. Forests are seen as a domestic resource, and efforts to build a global forestry regime – or even to encourage states to take common approaches – have failed. The regional approach to managing forests, oceans, and fisheries has so far resulted in more progress than the global approach. Oceans face threats on four fronts – overfishing, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction – and we know remarkably little about their condition. The political response to managing fisheries has lagged far behind the demand for fish and improvements in the efficiency of fishing. Environmental policy is not just concerned with qualitative matters such as clean air and water, but also with quantitative matters, prime among them being the management of natural resources. These are materials or commodities found naturally on earth that have value to humans, and include land, water, plants, animals, soil, minerals, fossil fuels, forests, fisheries, and the open ocean. They can be consumed directly, as in the case of food and drinking water, or indirectly, as in the case of forests that provide timber and fuelwood.